Random Picks and Modding...

[Scott Hebert]

Graeme Dice said:

At 15 gold, I'll have 10 or more castles recruiting nothing but consorts. That way I can completely shut down an opponent's economy. With 100 consorts you could shut down something like 10 provinces a turn, and never lose more than 1 in each province.

Presuming I kill any of them before I'm right on top of you. You do have a point, though. Perhaps a blanket increase in their cost is in order. (All spies.)

Would it be better if catching a stealthy unit created an Assassination-type encounter?

You don't patrol unless you are trying to catch spies or assasin's, and then you'll use enough cheap units that the bonus on a commander doesn't matter too much.

Well, as a note, Assassins and Spies have become cheaper, so patrolling might be useful.

Which doesn't matter much past turn 5, as you'll be recruiting nothing but Crones as soon as possible.

I don't necessarily agree with that, but then, I don't have your vast experience playing this game.

Man is limited to a single crone per turn, which isn't nearly enough to keep up in most cases.

Perhaps. Again, you are the experienced player here.

Man doesn't benefit from the capitol only reduction. Man is hamstrung by the capital only restriction for everything past the very earliest parts of the game.

And they benefit the same amount as anyone else by the capital-only cost reduction. Now, I may revise the reduction I give so that the reduction is greater the more capital-only commanders there are. That would solve this issue (about the only one it wouldn't solve would be the Bane Spider one).

You have to price commanders based on what they can accomplish. Empoisoner's are just about the only assasins that you'll ever be able to make use of besides taking out independents early on.

[/quote]

If you say so. I've seen quite a few 'assassin builds' around that are quite effective at any point.